The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2

by Donald Harington

  In fact she was running out of paper, but Grandpa had promised to bring some more the next time he came, and she hoped he might even come today.

  Now it often happened in Robin’s life that whenever she thought about something, or was hoping for something, that that something actually came to pass, it really occurred, it appeared as if by magic, the magic that was in Robin’s head. It made her feel powerful and it made her wonder if she had the ability to perceive things that other people could not.

  Anyway, there came a knock at the door. There were hardly ever any knocks at the door. Once in a great while there might be a couple of women selling a religious magazine and she had to tell them that she was not allowed to open the door. Robin ran to the door and called, “Who is it?”

  And the voice said, “It’s your grandpa. Open up.”

  And she turned the deadbolt and was about to open the door, ready to jump into his arms and be lifted up, when suddenly she realized that he had not knocked with the code, shave-and-a-haircut-six-bits.

  “You didn’t knock wight,” she called to him, sorry that the return of her speech impediment robbed her voice of authority.

  “I didn’t? Well, drat my hide.” He sure sounded like Grandpa. “How’s this?” And he knocked a sort of knock knockedy-knock knock that sounded like the code. But it wasn’t quite it. Robin fled to the living room window and peered out. Grandpa’s car was not out there. It was just an old pickup truck.

  She returned to the door. “What’s your name?” she called.

  “Grandpa.”

  “What do people call you?”

  There was a silence, too long, on the other side, and she was convinced that this man, whoever he was, was a stranger, and therefore a danger. “Please open the door,” he said.

  “Go away,” she said. “You’re not my grandpa and if you don’t go away I’ll call the police.”

  “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down,” he said.

  She couldn’t help giggling. “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!” she said.

  She could hear him making some exaggerated breathing and blowing on the other side of the door, huffing and puffing. Then he said, “Piggy-wiggy, that didn’t work. Your house won’t blow down. I don’t rightly recollect how the rest of it goes. Does the big bad wolf climb down your chimney next?”

  He sure sounded like Grandpa, and she wondered if Grandpa was just playing with her. “No,” she corrected him, “you’re supposed to say you’ll take me at six o’clock in the morning to Farmer Smith’s turnip patch.”

  “Okay. Will you meet me at six o’clock in the morning?”

  “I’ll be there at five o’clock but with a bunch of police.”

  “Piggy-wiggy, I aint the big bad wolf, no foolin. I’m your lover boy. Me and you are fated to spend the rest of our lifes together, so we might as well get started right here and now.”

  She thought, Something may be wrong with me, but I will never be in love. I will never have a lover boy. I love Paddington so much, but he’s not really a boy. She said, “I’m going to count to ten and if you’re not gone I’m calling the police.”

  “Don’t you even want to see my face? For all you know, I could be your Prince Charming. Open the door and have a look.”

  “You sure don’t sound like anybody’s Prince Charming,” she said. “Now get! One…two…three….”

  “Awright, I’m a-going, but you’ll be sorry you turned me away. I’m fated to have ye, and I’ll have ye one way or t’other, wait and see.”

  She waited, not commenting on that, and she waited, and finally she heard the truck start up. She ran to the window and looked out and got just a glimpse of him in profile driving away. He was just some old guy. Not a Prince Charming at all. More like the frog before he turned into the prince.

  She returned to Robinsville and tried to resume her supervision of the lives of its citizens or at least of their wardrobes, but she was breathing hard and could feel her insides were all out of whack. She thought of calling the police anyway. Or calling her mother. Yes, she had better call her mother at the store. She went to the phone and started dialing but was stopped by the realization that if she reported this visitor to her mother there was no way on God’s earth that she would be allowed to attend Kelly’s birthday slumber party. It was bad enough already that Robin had refrained from telling her mother that Kelly’s parents planned to take all the girls to the roller rink for the earlier part of the birthday party. Robin loved the roller rink more than any other place in Harrison, but her mother would never, ever let her go there, and if she knew that Kelly’s parents were planning to include it as part of the party she wouldn’t let Robin go. Robin sighed, and put the phone down.

  There came another knock at the door! She actually jumped. But wasn’t it the code knock? She went to the door and called, “Who is it?”

  And the voice said, “It’s your grandpa. Open up.”

  He was back! Whatever bluster and courage she had had during his first visit was now lost. She thought she would faint. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  She recognized his laughter. “Why, Leo Spurlock, I reckon,” he said. “Last time I looked, anyhow.”

  She ran to the window again and looked out and sure enough it was Grandpa’s car out there. She opened the door and leaped into his arms.

  “Cupcake, you’re trembling,” he said. “Did I give you a scare?”

  “No, but there was a man here. He was pretending to be you. Where’s Grandma?”

  “Aw, she wanted me to drop her off at the shoe store. Which means I don’t have to go get her for another hour. So I thought I’d just run out and bring you some more cutting paper. I’ve got two reams in the car, one white and one colored.” He returned to his car and brought her the big packages of paper, which would provide a summer and fall wardrobe for everybody in Robinsville. Then he sat in his favorite chair and patted his lap for her to sit in it, but she was getting too old for that. “What’s this about somebody pretending to be me?” he asked.

  She sat on the sofa and started telling him the whole story of the stranger’s visit, but she got only as far as the huffing and puffing part when Grandpa laughed and said, “That’s a great story, sugar bun, but you sure it aint jist a story?”

  “He was here, just a little while ago, just before you came.”

  “Hmmm,” said Grandpa. “I seen a feller in a pickup driving down the road as I was coming in.”

  “That was him. He was in an old pickup.”

  “Didn’t git a good look at him but he shore didn’t look like me.”

  “I told him I was gonna call the police, and he went away.”

  “Well, you know, there’s lots of fellers like that in this world. Your beauty just swept him off his feet and he didn’t know what he was doing.”

  “But he never saw me!” she protested.

  “Might’ve seen you get off the school bus.” Grandpa nodded his head and kept on nodding it, as if that was the answer to the whole matter. Some stranger had seen her get off the school bus, had greatly admired her and even—what was the word? yes: lust—the stranger had lusted after her and wanted her body. Miss Moore had given the class information about why it was so necessary for both girls and boys to avoid strangers and not allow themselves to be lured, and afterward Becky had said to Robin, “I still don’t get it. Why would a stranger go to all that trouble? What does he want?” and Gretchen had said, “Silly, he wants to fuck you!” Robin had heard that word several times and had a fairly good idea of what it meant. It was something very wicked that some people did for fun and nastiness. Gretchen had tried to tell them that mommies and daddies did it too, and Robin had become so angry at Gretchen she hadn’t spoken to her since then. “Why don’t you sit on my lap,” Grandpa said, “and I’ll tell you a story or two, like old times.”

  She realized she had never been alone with Grandpa before, without Grandma or her mother present. She wasn’t comfortab
le, and that bothered her, especially because she adored her grandfather. “I was hoping,” she said, “that I could ride my bike with you here to look after me.” She had a perfectly wonderful bicycle, the most expensive thing that was her very own, but she hardly ever got to ride it. Her mother wouldn’t let her go out and ride it off by herself, and the only times she could ride it was when her mother would supervise her, and there were hardly any times like that. She really needed the exercise. Since the weather had started warming up, at school recess the girls (and boys too) had taken to removing their shoes and socks to play their games, but Robin hated to go barefoot. She could understand why other kids liked it and liked the feel of the cool earth or grass under their feet, but Robin couldn’t stand it. So she had been avoiding the recess games, and wasn’t getting enough exercise. When it got too bad, she could always skip her rope by herself, which she often did, alone in the house, in relief against all that sitting-down to manage Robinsville, but skipping rope or even practicing her taekwondo moves wasn’t as much fun as riding the bicycle. Her father one time had taken her to a martial arts class where the taekwondo teacher had told her she would be a black belt within six months if she came to class regularly. But of course her mother wouldn’t let her go, and her father just didn’t come around any more.

  “Okey-doke, I reckon,” Grandpa said. “If you’re a-hankerin to ride your bike, I ’spect I could oblige ye.”

  So she put on her jacket and got her key and locked the house and Grandpa got in his car and drove it slowly behind her while she rode her bicycle down the road. It felt so good. She liked to pump with her legs and feel the wind in her face. It really wasn’t very cold. She liked to swing the bike frame back and forth as she pumped harder. Soon she had left Grandpa a good ways behind. If only she had her dog running along beside her. But she’d never had a dog, or a cat, because her mother said it was out of the question. She would simply adore having a good dog, and have it now running with its tongue hanging out beside her bicycle. Bicycle riding was really the only time she liked to be outdoors. Not that she was a stay-at-home, and she certainly wasn’t allergic to fresh air, but she just had no appreciation for the world of nature, and woods bothered her. She disliked the few times that the teacher had taken the class on a “nature walk,” and she had no interest whatever in being able to identify trees or plants or flowers or anything. Even the Sunday school teacher had once tried to take the class out into the woods to discover how God was out there in those woods, but she never found Him. If she were God she wouldn’t want to be in the woods. “I have never seen God,” she told her mother later, and from then onward refused to say her prayers at night or anytime.

  Now she stopped peddling and squeezed the brakes on the handlebar. Right there up ahead beside the road was that man parked in his pickup truck. She looked behind her to see how far Grandpa’s car was. She couldn’t see it. She shouldn’t look over her shoulder like that while the bike was still moving. She lost her balance and before she could stop the bike or get her balance she had crashed into the earth.

  Chapter seven

  My goodness alive but wasn’t she the pertiest little thing that ever walked God’s earth—or rode a bike on it? He didn’t much believe in God; he’d seen or heard about too damn many plum loco things in this world to believe that nobody as smart as God was supposed to be could possibly have saw fit to allow it, let alone have planned it in the first place, but whenever he laid his eyes upon Robin he was struck all of a heap with the certainty that nobody but God Hisself could have had the cleverness to have created somebody so splendid. Oftentimes he wondered if Louisa had looked like that when she was just a young ’un. He’d seen photos of Louisa looking tiny and cute, but nothing at all like her granddaughter, why, there was scarce even a family resemblance. Of course it was hard to think of Louisa without resentment. Even besides the fact she hadn’t wanted him to touch her for years and years, she was so all-fired churchy and had to go three times a week and drag him along with her, she had also made it hard for him to give Robin all the loving she needed. When that worthless asswipe Billy Kerr had taken to fooling around and then split for good, Leo had wanted to step in and take his place as a kind of daddy for Robin, but Louisa had suspicioned that he had the hots for Karen and wanted to take Billy’s place in bed, which wasn’t true at all, not at all. Karen was a sightly-enough woman, and Leo couldn’t understand why she hadn’t found herself another man, but he didn’t have any sort of attraction to her whatsoever. He just wanted to be a daddy for Robin. He wanted to take her to her martial arts classes that Billy had been taking her to but that Karen couldn’t find the time for. He wanted especially to take her out to the roller rink now and again, because she was already real good at what was called “artistic” skating, and if she got a chance to keep it up, why, there was just no telling how far she could go, maybe even switch to ice skates by and by and become another Sonja Henie or one of those such as Leo liked to watch on the TV. But damn her hide, Louisa had not allowed him to follow his intention to do all those things for Robin. The best he could do was buy her toys and things and make sure she had all she needed to follow her interest in paper dolls and paper things. He’d been allowed to help her in that line all he liked. In fact, not only had he started it all when he gave her a book full of paper dolls a few years before, but he had also demonstrated to her something that she ought to have learned from Karen or somebody but nobody had ever bothered to learn her: you can make yourself a whole string of paper dolls holding hands if you just fold up a sheet of paper proper and then cut just the profile of the doll, so that when you unfold your paper you’ve got a whole line of identical ones. As soon as she learned how to do that, Robin had to give a different name to each and every one of the identical dolls in the string, and that was how she got started a-populating her whole town full of little paper people, which she called Robinsville, and wasn’t that clever of her? Robin was not only the pertiest thing he’d ever seen, and the smartest to boot, but she had an imagination that would make you shake your head in wonder and keep on a-shaking it.

  Leo had a thing for paper himself. He had also shown her how to take a sheet and fold it just right so that it became an airplane that would really fly. You had to do it just right. It was a trick Leo had learned in the Navy. He wanted to take Robin up one of the hills in Harrison and show her how to launch them paper planes out across the air and watch ’em fly and fly and just fly away. But he had to make do with being allowed to just take her out in the back yard and let her fly her planes back there, and they didn’t go very far without a drift of wind to catch ’em.

  Today was the first time he’d ever been truly alone with Robin, and here he was with just a back view of her a-riding along ahead of him, with that golden hair a-streaming out behind her. Personally he liked the hair better in braids, which Karen was real good at fixing when she wasn’t too busy, but now Robin had taken the braids out so she could have her hair blowing in the wind while she rode the bike. And all he could do was foller and watch.

  Leo took his foot off the gas, and coasted, and let his thoughts coast too. When he returned his attention to the road, he noticed that Robin had done pedaled right out of sight! He mashed the gas again and cleared the little curve in the road, and Christ all Jesus! If she hadn’t done had a wreck! Her and the bike were all crumpled up flat on the earth.

  Leo braked to jump out just at the same time that another feller was rushing up to her. Blamed if it wasn’t that feller he’d seen a little bit before, the one that Robin thought maybe had been knocking on her door. He and the feller got to her at the same moment. Him and the other feller each bent down and took one of her arms.

  She wasn’t hurt bad, maybe a scrape or two, and she wasn’t even crying. Leo had never in her life known her to cry, over anything. But she was in great pain, he could tell.

  The other feller was trying to lift her up too, and he was a pretty big and stout feller, half again as big as Leo, and sure eno
ugh he just lifted her up easy as a loaf of bread and made as if to carry her to his pick-up.

  “Grampa,” she says through her big lips that was all twisted in pain.

  “Yeah, it’s Grampa,” says the other feller. What the heck? And started a-carrying her toward his truck.

  “Hold on!” says Leo and grabbed aholt of one of her arms. “I’m her grampa!”

  “The hell you say,” says the feller, tough and mean. “I’m her grampa.”

  Leo had never met Billy Kerr’s dad, who lived over in Oklahoma somewheres and had never been to Harrison as far as Leo knew about, and he wondered, could this maybe be Billy Kerr’s daddy? If that was so, then he’d really be her grandfather because Leo wasn’t actually her blood grandfather.

  “Well, I got to her first,” Leo says, somewhat lamely, and wraps his arms around her possessively.